"Preparing For Disasters Is An Opportunity Too"

AMOD MANI DIXIT needs no introduction in the field of earthquake and disaster management.

May 8, 2015, 5:45 p.m.

AMOD MANI DIXIT needs no introduction in the field of earthquake and disaster management. Executive director of NSET, Dixit spoke to New Spotlight in connection with the Earthquake Day Nepal celebrates on January 16,2015 to remember the devastation of the great Earthquake of 1934.  We reprint it as the issue raise by Amod Mani Dixit's came into reality. Excerpts:

Having worked for a long time in disaster management, particularly in relation to earthquakes, what to do you suggest for making our disaster plans more effective?

First of all, we will need to bring all the stakeholders together, including the 36,000 wards of about 4,000 village development committees, of 120,000 villages, across the country. Disaster management is impossible without the involvement of all. One ministry or two ministries cannot do it. Even the government alone cannot do it. Similarly, the District Development Committee or Village Development Committee cannot do it by themselves. Likewise, the Ministry of Home Affairs cannot do it alone either.

Why is that so difficult?

Disasters always need we work in rush. If we miss one day, we will lose a month. We need to work in close coordination and with the technical knowledge.

How do you view the debate going on as regards the Disaster Management bill?

Although a Disaster Management Bill is the prerequisite in dealing with disasters, it is yet to be table in the Legislature Parliament. The Ministry of Home Affairs is still holding it as the bill has economic importance. One day's delay in tabling the bill will have long term implications. It will take over 30 years if don’t work now. If we make mistakes in the bill, it will take more time.

Why are you in such a hurry?

If we start from today, it will take twenty years. If you start from tomorrow, it may take thirty years. In case of mistakes or wrong provisions in the bill, it may take even a hundred years. Even with everything in place, we cannot prevent human loss, but we can recover from the loss of property. For this, a functional disaster management act is necessary. One needs to understand this. We don’t have time to make mistakes.

It seems that you are exaggerating the scenario?

I am not exaggerating anything about the severe implications and impacts of a disaster or earthquake in Kathmandu. According to a report published by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which was prepared with support from JICA,  Kathmandu is unlikely to remain as the capital of Nepal in case of a major earthquake like that of 1990 B.S. Does it mean the collapse of Singh Durbar? Or death of prime minister, king or high-level person? Or Kathmandu will fall down.

As Nepal is celebrating the Earthquake Day, how vulnerable is Kathmandu actually now?

Kathmandu may not be in a position to govern Nepal socially, politically and economically after a big quake. Finally, everything lies in the strength of economy and economy is everything. The quake will bring a huge economic cost. Since we are a member of UN and various UN agencies have predicted that Nepal’s economy will have to bear a heavy burden, even impossible to carry, in case of a major earthquake in Kathmandu.

What has all this to do with vulnerabilities from quake?

Tokyo and California are also prone to earthquake like Kathmandu. These cities are also expecting major earthquakes. However, their damage of infrastructure and human loss is likely to be more nominal than Nepal's. In terms of loss of humans, Kathmandu will have to see much larger casualty and devastation than those cities as the settlement of Kathmandu city is unsafe. Along with human casualty, Kathmandu will see a greater economic loss.

Does disaster bring only destruction?

Absolutely no. Natural disasters also bring economic opportunities. After the 1934 great earthquake in Nepal, new roads were planned to accelerate the economic activities. When we talk about the effects, the quake will have devastating impacts and effects in the society. The destruction and devastation like collapse of buildings, bridges, deaths and injuries, short supply of drinking water and electricity are one part of the story.

Why is there such a difference?

Our level of development is different from that of Japan, a highly developed and industrialized country. Nepal is a Least Developed Country. Human life in developed countries is regarded as precious. Thus, focus is always on saving life and preventing human casualty. This is not so with the developing countries.  Even a small quake and flood badly damage us and take decades for us to recover. The good example is how people are still suffering from the flood of last July. Large numbers of people are still living in huts and camps.

Where does the earthquake affect most?

The indirect cost of disaster is much higher. It would have much repercussion, but what we lack is the discussion in terms of loss and damage. Eighty percent of risk of quake lies in houses and infrastructures. However, there is no role of Ministry of Urban Development.  Ministry of Finance seems to have no interest at all whether there is a quake or not. The quake of September 2011 devastated a large area in eastern Nepal but nothing happened in the way we manage disasters. According to the Ministry of Urban Development, 30,000 houses were damaged, with desperate need for reconstruction. Have these buildings been repaired? Has anybody disseminated information regarding making the house safe? How much compensation did the people get?

How do you see the relations between finance and disaster?

The disaster has direct relations with finance not only in terms of damage but also regarding reconstruction. After any kind of disaster, there is a need to launch reconstruction activities. Kathmandu is one of the most prone to earthquake. It is estimated that over 60 percent of the houses will either be destroyed or demolished, ninety percent of the bridges will be damaged without any chances to operate vehicles. The water supply system will completely go out of order for six months. Telecommunication and electricity will be out of order for months. What will be the impact of all this? Dead bodies will be buried but what about the reconstruction. Do our economists know the disaster economy? So far as I know, nobody thinks about this.

What do you suggest for the business community?

The businessmen should see disaster as an economic opportunity. They have to take three works. First of all industrialists and business communities should protect their families in case of major quakes. Their houses should be protective. They should know what they need to do for their own safety. Secondly, they need to work to make their own businesses and houses safe from any major quake. Thirdly, they should have the business continuity plan. The main basis of that plan is that disaster is an opportunity and they have to prepare for using this opportunity by making necessary arrangements for the coming disasters.

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Anterior Cervical Corpectomy and Fusion

An anterior cervical corpectomy and fusion is an operative procedure to relieve pressure on the spinal cord and spinal nerves by removing the vertebral bone and inter-vertebral disc material (decompression) in the cervical spine or neck.

What is anterior cervical corpectomy and fusion?

Anterior cervical corpectomy involves removing the vertebral bone or disc material by approaching the cervical spine from the front side (anterior position) of the neck. Spinal fusion implies placing a bone graft between the two affected vertebral bodies, encouraging bone growth between the vertebrae. Spinal fusion helps in achieving adequate decompression of the neural structures. The bone graft acts as a medium for binding the two vertebral bones, and grows as a single vertebra which stabilizes the spine. It also helps to maintain the normal disc height.

Who needs this surgery?

Degenerative spinal conditions like herniated discs and bone spurs result in spinal nerve compression. In addition, spinal fractures, infection or tumours may also put pressure on the spinal nerve structures. Nerve compression in the neck region (cervical spine) can cause neck pain and/or pain, weakness or numbness that radiates down to the arms. Your surgeon recommends you for anterior cervical corpectomy and fusion surgery after examining your spine, medical history, and imaging results of cervical vertebrae by an X-ray, CT (computed tomography) scan or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). Surgery is recommended only after non-surgical treatment approaches fail. Before recommending surgery, your surgeon considers several factors such as your health condition, age, lifestyle and anticipated level of activity following surgery. A thorough discussion with your surgeon regarding this treatment option is advised before scheduling the surgery.

How is the procedure performed?

Your surgeon makes a small incision at the front of your neck to the side and locates the source of neural compression. Then, the vertebral body or inter-vertebral disc that is compressing the nerve root will be removed to relieve the compression. Afterwards, a bone graft will be placed at the site of the decompression. In addition, instruments such as plates and screws are used to provide additional support and stability and to ease healing and fusion of the vertebrae.

How much time will it take for complete recovery?

A specific post-operative recovery/exercise plan will be designed by your physician to help you return to normal activity at the earliest possible. After surgery, your symptoms may improve immediately or gradually over the course of time. The duration of hospital stay depends on this treatment plan. You will be able to wake up and walk by the end of the first day after the surgery. You should be able to resume your work within 3-6 weeks, depending on your body’s healing status and the type of work/activity that you plan to resume. Discuss with your spinal surgeon and follow his/her instructions for optimized healing and appropriate recovery after the procedure.

What are the possible risks or complications?

Please take your physician’s advice for a complete list of indications, clinical results, adverse effects, warnings and precautions, and other relevant medical information about the anterior cervical discectomy with fusion surgery.

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Universität Erfurt

Model United Nations Universität Erfurt

What is MUN?

Model United Nations (MUN) conferences are academic simulations of the United Nations. Students take on the roles of diplomats and simulate the work of the United Nations and its various committees.

At national and international MUN conferences participants from all throughout the world discuss challenging and educational topics, negotiate and finally write resolutions.

MUN conferences are based upon the diplomatic work ethic and procedure of the United Nations and the UN Charter. Conferences are generally held in English.

Participating in MUN conferences enables students to broaden their understanding of the United Nations system and its intercultural dialogue. Furthermore it allows them to experience complex processes of international politics and provides training in research, rhetorics, negotiation and language skills.

Worldwide there are more than 400 MUN conferences. The largest and most well-known simulation for students is the yearly National Model United Nations conference (NMUN) in New York City.

Students at the University Erfurt can take the seminar as part of their classes for Studium Fundamentale. Additionally, they will participate in the yearly EfMUN conference, which is hosted by Akademische Simulation Erfurt e.V.

Nutzermenü und Sprachwahl


An argument in favor of the existence of bigfoot

But the truth is new bigfoot videos are surfacing everyday on Youtube and other video sites. This is why they are so hard to spot, let alone catch. Just a single strand of hair would provide conclusive DNA evidence that a previously unidentified species was alive on the planet.

In addition, dome like structures have been found, where branches appear to have been weaved around a bent tree, the bent tree being secured to the ground by a large rock in some cases. Sightings have been reported for around a hundred years.

Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God

But here's the catch They say that most bigfoot sightings are hoaxs or simple misidentifications of other things like bears, stumps, or snow covered trees. The fact of the matter is, there are a LOT of hoaxes out there re: Lastly, there are historical records of giant skeletons having been found all across America.

The Humboldt Times ran a story about the discovery and called the creature, Bigfoot. Many sightings have taken place in broad daylight with a clear view and, they are highly consistent. While many of these occurred due to natural means such as high winds, storms etc, Many believe that the complex and unusual formations of some damaged trees could only have been created with a pair of hands.

Since eyewitness testimony is used in a court of law to convict someone of a crime this is powerful evidence. In some situations, e. Of all the arguments against Bigfoot, this one is the most damning.

Since all attempts to prove Bigfoot from a zoological perspective have panned out, perhaps the last desperate cry is to link Bigfoot to the supernatural realms. There is some redundancy on the list, and some problems here and there with reasoning, but all in all, I think Radford has a pretty reasonable list here.

Conservation needs are impossible to assess without the ability to recognise and differentiate species. Radford contends that, in order to account for the large number of sightings, a large number of Bigfoot are required. We don't even have fossil records. They may have crossed into North America across the Bering land bridge just like we did long time ago.

The mountain gorilla was not discovered until The Washington Post and New York Times published dozens upon dozens of articles pertaining to unusual and giant skeletons having been found during the 19th and 20th centuries.

His very existence for thousands of years would have created an environmental footprint that couldn't be concealed, but he's largely invisible.

If Bigfoot is a herbivore, samples of that activity should be apparent. Perhaps a better question is how far should we stretch the borders of rational thinking before we are willing to acknowledge that such postulations are absurd? Nonbelievers also point out inconsistencies in the stories of the two men that shot the Patterson Gimlin film as reason to believe it was a hoax, and they say the film was simply a money making scam.

None have ever been found. Yet despite all of this, scientists claim to never have found a bigfoot skeleton proving their existence.

Radford's primary point here is that there ain't no bigfoot-esque fossils to be found, ergo, no Bigfoot.

Bigfoot, Real or Fantasy? My Argument For The Existence Of Bigfoot

Most evidence can be explained by mistakes and hoaxes. From that point on the descriptions usually matched the depiction of the creature seen in the film. According to many analysts the creature shown in the Patterson Gimlin film walks far too quickly to be a man, and appears too heavy and muscular to be human as well.

It is important to note that some counties prohibit killing of a Sasquatch. An additional problem and one that the bigfoot buffs out there probably thought of immediately is that A not knowing the exact phylogenetic position of "Bigfoot" makes it difficult to identify ancestors, and B if it is a hominid or hominoid, or whateverthen we may have some fossilized ancestors in the form of Old World fossils, and the taphonomic effect may explain their absence in the record.

There are many species for which these are not valid alternatives. The group has been under fire recently for the sasquatch shooting incident in Honobia, OK. All of these share one common trait, DNA.

Is Bigfoot real or not ?

You can love us or you can hate us, but we aren't here to placate science any more than we are to placate the so-called bigfoot "community" who are dead set against the taking of a type specimen for irrational reasons.

Now perhaps Bigfoot is just smarter than the average bear or telepathic and hides better than most animals -- maybe he's even learned to bury his dead, which might partly explain the lack of physical evidence. The authenticity of the footage has been hotly debated and arguments in favor and against have not stalled the intense scrutiny and excitement the film first generated when it was released to the public in Is Big Foot real?

68% Say Yes 32% Say No I Saw Bigfoot So my argument believes he is and I am not going to change my mind, because I believe he is real. Report Post. Like Reply. 0. 1. Bigfoot is just another type of mammal and is % real! Bigfoot is just another type of mammal and is not dangerous and will kill you like they say.

They have also believed that an effective rational argument for God's existence is an important first step in opening the mind to the possibility of faith—in clearing some of the roadblocks and rubble that prevent people from taking.

Jan 01,  · Well I AM saying bigfoot exists. Great. Let's see the evidence. Remember scientists didn't have concrete evidence dark matter existed until It was once thought the Earth was flat, therefore Bigfoot exists. Poor logic. Poor argument. Bigfoot or Sasquatch, large apelike creature reportedly sighted hundreds of times in the United States and Canada (most often in the Pacific Northwest) since the midth cent.

Arguments for the existence of Bigfoot - definition of Arguments for the existence of Bigfoot by The Free Dictionary.

Arguments for the existance of bigfoot synonyms, Arguments for the existance of bigfoot antonyms -

An argument in favor of the existence of bigfoot
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Photo courtesy NASA/STScI
Credit: Greg Bacon

Artist's concept of planet-orbiting star 79 Ceti

Are we alone in the universe, or does life exist elsewhere? We have begun to search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) by looking for radio transmissions from other civilizations. An important aspect of SETI is deciding where to look for these radio transmissions -- after all, the universe is an awfully big place. To refine the SETI searches, it is helpful to know which stars have planets orbiting them.

Until 1991, our sun was the only star known to have planets around it. This changed when astronomer Alex Wolszczan discovered two planets orbiting a pulsar in the constellation Virgo. Since his discovery, there have been over 50 planets found in orbit around other stars -- these orbiting bodies are called extrasolar planets.

In this edition of HowStuffWorks, we'll find out what planets are, how they are formed, how we search for extrasolar planets (and what we've found so far) and about the new methods being developed for planet hunting.


Information: Nature, importance and functions

Satija, M P

Information is all around us and next to matter and energy it is the most important and common entity in this world. It moves the world. Being a much over used term it is least understood and there is no consensual definition of it. But its properties are numerous and well recognized. It keeps moving a system be it bio, astro, social or mechanical. For an animal it is the product of being conscious. It is formed through sense perception in the brain but needs a physical media for its recording and communication. It is recorded as graphic visuals or electrical pulses or electromagnetic waves both in audio and visual forms. The article enumerates its various physical, economic, political and social properties and functions. Information has become a great and inexhaustible resource in national development. To live effectively is to live with authentic and adequate information. But it needs knowledge for its effective application. Without knowledge, information may be all heat and smoke without any light. The article emphasises that information literacy is instrumental in empowering citizens in this complex and sophisticated social world.

Data; Information; Information literacy; Knowledge; Properties of information; Sense perception

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Charlotte Watts

Charlotte Watts - Yoga for De-Stress and Relaxation

I am a Senior Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance UK, practising since 1997, teaching since 2007 and trained with the Vajrasati School of Yoga (RYT500) in Brighton. I teach with an emphasis on mindfulness so depth and strength can be fostered within yoga practice as your body needs -  helping release stress, not adding to it..

I have continued to explore this essence of finding our authentic selves through yoga, with further training with teachers including Judith Lasater, Donna Farhi and Tias Little and Mindfulness and Yoga training with Cathy-Mae Karelse.

As a Nutritional Therapist and Yoga Teacher in Brighton and London, I specialise in stress-related issues such as anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, depression and burnout. This has culminated in my latest book The De-Stress Effect (Hay House 2015).

Yoga’s focus on calming the nervous system, attuning to our mind-body needs and dropping beneath brain chatter perfectly complements my nutritional therapy work, especially with an emphasis on mindfulness within both.

In this way I can work with clients in well-rounded and truly holistic mind-body health programmes.

Why is this yoga more ‘De-Stressing’ than others?

It’s a known fact that a regular yoga practice helps relieve stress, so why on earth is this class specifically given the title ‘De-Stress’ you might well ask….. Well, it follows my years of research and teaching, both as a yoga teacher and a nutritional therapist, specialising in all things stress-related. Where we might tend to follow the habits of doing, striving and achieving in life, rather than take this into a forceful yoga practice, instead we have the opportunity to really pay attention to this behavioural conditionings and drop beneath; to listen and respond to what we need.

"The breath leads, the body follows and the mind observes”

Yoga is connection; not the shapes we make or the flexibility we might want, but awareness created and in the first of the Yoga Sutras, ‘stilling the mind’. A physical yoga practice can help us do that, providing a focus for our restless minds and helping us to stay with strong sensations with our breath as a guide.

What actually happens in a class?

Sessions on retreats can vary in tone, energy and emphasis, depending on the time of day and the needs of the group. We always start by arriving and connecting with the breath though. From there we can then start mindfully loosening the body, usually either lying or sitting.

In a morning class, we can then use this to move into a stronger asana (posture) practice to open up tight upper spines, compressed front bodies, tight thighs, hamstrings and psoas muscles so common in the modern body. This will be wherever we need to safely and effectively encourage postural conditions and habits as our bodies are designed but may not always achieve.

In the afternoon, we will move into a more grounding and relaxing practice – this may be somatic, restorative or yin, but usually melding elements of each to balance movement and stillness, opening and recovery.

In all sessions, we lead back down to a restorative and relaxing practice at the end; to assimilate energy we have created, fully release any stress moved out and to prepare us to take this attitude of non-reaction into our daily lives

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Business and Management Ia

 Business and Management Ia Essay

Business and management (HL) IA

Discourse on:

Will certainly STEADY Company increase their market share in Chinese language real estate market?

Candidate name: Talia Chen

|Page: 1 . | Title | | 2 . | Content | | a few: | Intro | | 4-7: | Procedure and method | | | | |8: |Result and conclusion | |9-12: |Appendix and Research

STEADY Business is a business that generally invests real estate projects. The estate marketplace in China is super competitive so that the business of STEADY Company is getting smaller and smaller. Hence the main analysis topic should be to find out if STEADY Business can increase their market share. To resolve this problem, I would like to start with researching the market and find out the actual problem of their company. So I did a lot of primary exploration and supplementary research on the web and from the interview. To focus on this statement, you will discover three aspects that can be discussed and evaluate. STEADY organization is a tiny estate organization which contain a basically small piece of Chinese market share. It was established in June 1996, used to have a name named YASHI Business, in Sept. 2004 altered name to STEADY. Essentially, their occupation is fund to the house and build residential buildings then provides them. Till now, the business is formed being a private limited company with three investors, the whole fund is over 35 billion RMB; Distribute to many cities just like Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Suzhou, Huhehot, Taiyuan and Beijing. In 2004, CONSTANT Company accomplished top 100-estate company that evaluated by the State Authorities and Qinghai University's Property Economic Study Institute. At the same time, the company begin many jobs, Fundamentally acquired by middle category people and usually receive 2 times profits. The first one is the industry’s promotion. Through the interview, I realize that the 1st idea of these to improve the business of the organization is promo. So I utilize promotional mixture and know-how about marketing strategies to evaluate the property to use advertisement being a method to maximize market share. After that is the item. The houses that STEADY Firm sold have some benefits and drawbacks than other company's products. Due to these dissimilarities and their diversity, I use Boston Matrix to gain access to the quality and variety of their merchandise. Also SWOT analysis will help you to ensure the organization вЂstrength and weakness. Even greater, the market is usually a very important aspect that can cause the death or success of the business. The estate market is incredibly complicate. So the PEST research is suitable to clear about the external environment give what opportunities and threats for the business. The shareholder marriage also is a large problem. The corporation consists of three main shareholders; they all include part of industry’s stock. A lot of times they still control the company. They often fight against each other. Hence the relationship is usually not so good. A shareholder research will help to share this situation and find the reason.

Techniques and method

Promotional mix

The promotional mix can be " the set of tools that the business may use to connect effectively the advantages of its products or services to its consumers. вЂќ[1] вЂў Above the range

In the category, most significant one is marketing, which is you’re able to send strategy. Different types of advertising will cost different amount of cash and have unstable effects. We can see the graph and or chart 1 in the Appendix. The...

 Yoga Dissertation

Yoga Dissertation

 lack of values in today’s contemporary society Essay

lack of values in today’s contemporary society Essay

п»їIn the last years, we have been facing the lack of ideals in the world and in relationships. We consider as " value " the degree of importance, significance or…...


Canada’s Environmental Charities Audited for Advocacy

Canada’s Environmental Charities Audited for Advocacy

Environmental Charity Analyst Canada’s Environmental Charities Audited for Advocacy

According to recent media reports, the Canada Revenue Agency has been auditing several Canadian environmental charities. The focus of these audits is apparently on advocacy activities.

What is advocacy and why can it be a problem? There is no reason why charities should not work to promote causes that their donors believe are important. However, Canada’s tax laws prohibit charities from spending more than 10% of their “total resources” on “political activities”.

Some of us might think that this policy simply means that charities aren’t supposed to spend large amounts of money promoting a political party. But in fact the definition of “political activity” is much broader. According to the Income Tax Act, if a charity recommends “to retain, oppose, or change” any “law, policy, or decision of any level of government in Canada or a foreign country” that will be considered a political activity. So, for example, if an environmental charity publishes a recommendation that the government should do more to protect the habitat of the woodland caribou, that can be considered a “political activity”. Similarly, a recommendation to the City of Toronto to increase the number of homeless shelters could be considered a “political activity”.

Of the face of it, it may seem unreasonable that any public action by a charity in favour or against any government policy is “political”. Nonetheless, this is how the legislation is worded.

Donors to Canadian environmental charities should have no concerns about giving to charities they support, provided that the charity keeps its CRA registration in good standing. Charity Intelligence’s recent comprehensive report on Environmental Charities identifies those charities that include advocacy as a significant portion of their activities. Donors might want to discuss this issue with charity management if they have concerns about the CRA actions.

The forthcoming Federal Budget may include further restrictions on activities by Canadian charities. Charity Intelligence will be following these issues closely and will provide an update following release of the Budget if required.

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Neat Little Golf Tricks That Are Simple To Learn

57e6d4424255ae14f6da8c7dda793278143fdef852547740762a7bd79348 640 - Neat Little Golf Tricks That Are Simple To Learn

Some sports out there prove that you can be active while experiencing simultaneous relaxation. Golf allows you to enjoy life while actively participating in a sport. However, doing it the wrong way will cause you a lot of trouble. Use the advice in this article to add some game to your swing.

Practicing with slightly different stances will help you learn the best way to stand. The key is proper stance, but it isn’t the same for everyone. Taking the time to perfect your stance will greatly lower your average score.

When golfing, sometimes it’s better to walk, rather than getting a golf cart. Walking the course will also help you become more familiar with the grounds and help you with your shots. The constant movement of walking while golfing will keep your muscles warm.

The beginning golfer needs to learn the right way to grip a club. New golfers often mistakenly grip the club tightly in hopes they will be able to hit the ball harder. You should instead grip the club soft and firm. Hold your club as if it were a bird.

Where possible, include strong players in your golf group so you can learn from their superior technique. You will definitely benefit from watching a better player. You don’t have to be in the presence of a pro. Anyone who is better than you can help. If you focus on the methods that they use, you’ll be able to develop new strategies, and they may encourage you to put more effort into your game.

Where possible, include strong players in your golf group so you can learn from their superior technique. There are plenty of ways that you can benefit from a talented golfer. Any golfer who’s more skilled than you can help you. A golfer at a professional level isn’t required. Focus on how they play, it can give you some new ideas. Also, just being around them may help you to have a better game.

To generate a truly powerful swing, your entire body needs to be involved, especially your legs and torso. Swing your body like a whip when you swing and get power from your lower body.

If you want to eat while on the course, try a light snack that is packed with proteins, such as nuts. Golf can make one both mentally and physically tired. The high protein and calorie content of your snack will help you sustain your level of mental energy and physical endurance, enabling you to finish the entire course.

Mental preparation is as, if not more important, than physical preparation when playing a round of golf. Clear your mind and concentrate on the game.

Develop a good position to improve your overall skills. The position you have usually dictates the distance your golf ball travels. If your slouch goes too far or even not far enough, then your ball isn’t going to get a lot of distance from your shot.

See to it that you’re holding the golf club the right way before your swing. Place the handle on your palms, and point your thumbs down. Both your hands should have contact with one another. Make sure you are choking up on your club if you desire to hit your ball longer distances.

Prior to buying a golf club, consider getting one custom-fitted to your specifications. No two golfers are exactly alike, so it naturally follows that no single club works equally well for all golfers. Getting the right club for your body will help your swing.

Keeping the ball in same position regardless of the shot type is important. This helps establish consistency for each shot. For added loft, drag your trailing foot forward while maintaining the position of the ball. By following this tip, you have a better opportunity to utilize the right club for any shot.

Worn Spot

When swinging the golf club, quickly move your hips. This will enable you to easily shift your weight between your front foot and your back foot. Hip swing, a move where your weight is shifted from your back foot to your front foot, is a critical determinant in your golf swing.

Check the club head – before you buy a used golf club! If a club has been overused, you can tell by the shiny, worn spot on the head. This worn spot is not good for your shot, as the head of the club does not connect with the ball correctly.

Fashion a workaround instead of constantly trying to overcome this perpetual stumbling block in your way. Eventually it may become something you can use to your advantage, adding to your unique playing style.

Be sure that you behind the golf ball at a distance of about four feet. At the same time, you should be viewing the location where you want the ball to end up. During this time, take into account how you will need to adjust your shot based on the wind and any other relevant factors. Taking just a few minutes thinking about the shot will help you properly align the ball. Then, when you stand over the ball for your shot, you can more effectively direct the ball to where you want it to go.

If you are a beginner at golf, pay attention to the tee height. The height of your tee is very important to how you drive the ball. A tee too high or too low will result in inefficient, short, off-kilter drives. Focus on how you naturally hold and swing the club. The tee should hold the ball near the center of the club face on a natural swing.

Don’t tense up when you are swinging. A lot of golfers are doing this, and it will not be good for your golf game. It is vital to be relaxed and not rigid if you want to hit accurately and powerfully. Pay attention to how stiff you are, and find a way to relax.

The great thing about golf is that you can learn to improve your game. The most basic requirement is that qualities such as the correct swing and good mental focus are necessary in playing golf the right way. Put the information you’ve received here into practice to better your game, and have fun while doing it!

Purchase your golf shoes a size large to allow for the fact that your feet will probably expand during a day of hard walking outdoors. If you buy golf shoes that fit you perfectly in the store, you may be very sorry and very uncomfortable by the end of your golf game!


Human Resources Coordinator

MIFA’s mission: Supporting the independence of vulnerable seniors and families in crisis through high-impact programs. Our vision: Uniting the community through service. Our values are to welcome and respect all people, act with integrity, value individual initiative and ability, serve individuals and the community as an act of faith, and balance humanitarian goals with sound business practices.

Job title: Human Resources Coordinator

Reports to VP human resources; full-time, exempt, starting rate $16.50/hour

Closing date: March 20, 2015

To apply, mail resume and cover letter to MIFA Human Resources, 910 Vance Ave, Memphis, TN  38126 or email to No phone calls, please.

Position summary

To coordinate all aspects of the day-to-day operations of human resources through the use of excellent organizational skills and judgment, as well as technical knowledge. Coordinator will serve as key facilitator for all company trainings and development opportunities.

  1. Bachelor’s degree in education, liberal arts, or business administration. Other combinations of education and experience may be considered.
  2. PHR,  SPHR, or related certification in the area of human resources strongly preferred with secondary qualifications in HR, training and development, or business studies
  3. Two years’ experience in a corporate or business setting, preferably in human resources
  4. Working knowledge of Fair Labor Standards Act, FMLA, ADA, and employment law processing
  5. Good people and organizational skills in dealing with inquiries, special requests, and complaints, with the ability to problem-solve effectively in person and over the phone
  6. Good presentation and written communication skills, including the ability to articulate policies and procedures, organizational concepts, and direct small groups
  7. Ability to welcome and respect people of diverse ages, groups, and cultural backgrounds
  8. Ability to complete duties on schedule with little or no supervision and very strong attention to detail
  9. Proficiency at communication systems (computer, email, laptop, fax, scanner, and presentation equipment), Microsoft Office, and various database systems
  10. Act with integrity and manage confidential information discreetly

Major responsibilities and related tasks

Manage timely compliance of all training and development opportunities, performance reviews, and trial evaluations.

  1. Coordinate and source ongoing annual trainings for MIFA staff
  2. Coordinate timely facilitation of 90-day onboarding trial reviews  and benefit orientations
  3. Manage compliance, and support the training and completions of MIFA’s annual performance review process
  4. Coordinate trainings for local, state and federal grant compliance
  5. Monitor programs and individualized request for specific training requirements
  6. Manage MIFA’s hiring process by facilitating the interview selection form process, judging appropriate recruitment methods, responding promptly to applicants, and effectively screening and disseminating applications.
  1. Complete and maintain appropriate paperwork  and reports (i.e. response correspondence, offer letters, employments letters, background checks, and status forms)
  2. Monitor for compliance and coordinate new employee orientations and trial reviews.
  3. Manage exit process by coordinating exit interviews, separation notices, and COBRA processing

Promote and engage monthly employee relations activities.

  1. Manage timely monthly nominations for the Richard Reinhart All-Star recognition program by notifying winners and monitoring effectiveness
  2. Coordinate, assess, and lead annual and ongoing employee relations activities with the Fun at Work committee
  3. Lead the coordination of monthly birthday notices, retirement celebrations, and quarterly gatherings
  4. Maintain a cooperative relationship with staff

Other responsibilities

  1. Manage the FMLA/LWOP/Workman’s Comp process, ensuring employees appropriately exit, respond, and reenter the system.
  2. Serve as benefit liaison by facilitating the enrollment of employees in insurance programs and assisting employees in obtaining accurate information about their fringe benefits.
  3. Oversee employee records in compliance with funding sources and ensure appropriate staff files are audit–compliant.
  4. Assist VP of Human Resources in all areas of administration.
  5. Coordinate billing processes and manage the HR employment schedule

Supervisory responsibilities

Direct/oversee and coordinate available temporary Meritan staff, interns, or volunteers as needed.

Physical demands and work environment

MIFA full-time benefits: MIFA employees may be eligible to participate in the following benefits programs on or before the 90-day trial period:  Medical and dental insurance plans, short-term disability, long-term disability, employee assistance program, paid time-off (PTO), employer sponsored life insurance, paid holidays, and MIFA’s matching 401k plan after a year of service.

MIFA employment guidelines

MIFA is an equal opportunity employer.

MIFA is a non-smoking facility.

Employment documents: (1) Application and/or resume; (2) I-9; (3) Form W-4; (4) Official transcripts verifying education if education is a requirement of the job.


The science of colors and the colors of science

Allan Lasser

Co-founder and CTO, Massive Science

I was delighted to learn about Werner's Nomenclature of Colours, a fascinating intersection of art and science. It's a book, first published in 1814, that orders, classifies, and names 110 colors and provides examples of where they can be found in the natural world.

The Public Domain Review shares a short history of origins of the book:

The book is based on the work of the German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner who, in his 1774 book Treatise on the External Characters of Fossils (translated into English in 1805), developed a nomenclature of colors so as to offer a standard with which to describe the visual characteristics of minerals. Clearly taken by the idea, some three decades later the Scottish painter of flowers Patrick Syme amended and extended Werner’s system. In addition to the mineral referent, for each of Werner’s colors Syme added an example from the animal and vegetable kingdom, as well as providing an actual patch of color on the page to accompany the words. While Werner found a suite of 79 tints enough for his geological purpose, now opened up to other realms of nature, Syme added 31 extra colors to bring the total to 110.

I love how this book dances back and forth between science and art. At the same time that it's trying to order and classify colors in a rigorous way, it's also making subjective associations between those colors and the natural world. I think it also tells a larger story about the close relationship between science and art, and how our ordered scientific knowledge emerges out of our subjective observations.

You can see the entire original book on the Internet Archive, or purchase a copy of the book for yourself from the Smithsonian.

New gadgets are fun. They're also abysmally destructive

Cassie Freund

Wake Forest University

The environmental impact of illegal gold mining in the Amazon

Planet Labs, Inc. / Wikimedia

I know I am.

Win a chemistry-themed board game from Genius Games

Allan Lasser

Co-founder and CTO, Massive Science

Nikita Nandakumar T

Chemical Engineering

Syracuse University

Sarah Anderson

Northwestern University

How did our ancestors start walking upright?

Darcy Shapiro

Evolutionary Anthropology

Rutgers University

Human ape skeletons

Gary Todd

Using the old-fashioned blueprint chemical process for modern art

Sarah Anderson

Northwestern University

A cyanotype of algae done by Anna Atkins.

New York Public Library

Researchers optimized a reaction involving DEAD to reduce chemical waste

Teresa Ambrosio

University of Nottingham

And they are predicted to get worse as the dry weather persists

Olivia Box

Natural Resources and Forest Ecology

University of Vermont

A tracker is keeping tabs on the Trump administration's assault on science

The Silencing Science Tracker has been compiling records since 2018

Science articles written by scientists perform as well as those written by journalists

Scientists are helping to fill a critical void and bringing unique perspectives to science communication

Amy R Nippert

University of Minnesota

Can scientists fill the void in science journalism? A new study posted on bioRxiv asked this exact question, and found that in terms of article engagement, scientists and journalists engage audiences at roughly equivalent rates. The researchers, led by PhD student Yael Baren-Ben David from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, looked at views, clicks, comments and time spent on the page as metrics of engagement, and compared equivalent articles written by scientists and professional journalists. For the two major Israeli online news sites that they studied, the audiences literally and figuratively “liked”  articles equivalently no matter who wrote them.

As the number of professional science journalists has declined, scientists have fulfilled the important task of communicating science to the public. As a scientist writing for Massive, it’s reassuring to me to see data confirming that scientists can write in a way that engages the general public, and that the public responds positively.

The study authors note that while scientists can inform and share science news, they are not independent outsiders and have other limitations on their time and knowledge. Increasing the number of scientists writing articles may accelerate the decline of science journalists, and increase reliance on unpaid, outside sources. Despite these caveats, scientists can still play an important role in science communication. It only benefits society to hear their unique points of view.

Snails are turning yellow to adapt to climate change

Science-loving citizens helped researchers look at how urban environments affect snails

Sruthi Sanjeev Balakrishnan

Cell Biology

National Centre for Biological Sciences

Simply owning a smartphone takes you one step closer to becoming a scientist. They're sometimes the instrument of choice for evolutionary biologists. By submitting pictures of snails through an app, science-loving citizens helped researchers look at how urban environments affect snails.

Human activity makes cities warmer than their surroundings. Snails are sensitive to such temperature changes, so having paler shells keeps them cool by reflecting sunlight. The snails studied here, Cepaea nemoralis i.e. a grove snail, can have pink, yellow or brown shells, with up to five dark stripes on them. They are also found both in cities and forests. If shell patterns are actually adaptations to different temperatures, are there more light-patterned snails in cities?

Grove snail - yellow outer shell - bark, tree, nature

 The grove snail or brown-lipped snail (Cepaea nemoralis) on a branch.

By Mad Max

Menno Schilthuizen’s research group at Leiden University tried to answer this question by studying snail pictures from across the Netherlands. Schilthuizen’s lab built an app  — SnailSnap  — that could be downloaded by anyone with a smartphone. The app had instructions on the kind of snails to take pictures of, which were uploaded to a server and analyzed by an algorithm.

The algorithm classified pictures in three ways: shell color, number of stripes, and environment. After sorting through nearly 8,000 images, it showed that yellow shells were more common in urban areas. This made sense as yellow reflects more sunlight than other colors.

Strangely, it was not snails with the least number of stripes, but ones with an intermediate number that were more populous in cities. This observation directly clashed with the “lighter is better” notion, as stripes are dark bands and having them reduces the shell’s capacity to reflect light. The researchers think they may have stumbled upon a novel way of regulating temperatures, where the snails use a combination of light and dark patterns to adjust heat radiation.

The scientists now plan to expand their project and analyze feather patterns in urban birds, once again enlisting the help of citizens in research. So next time you snap a picture of a pigeon, consider turning it in to these Dutch scientists.

We need to talk about our current global antimicrobial resistance crisis — in a more effective manner

Antimicrobial resistance has been declared a global health threat, but we're running into barriers when it comes to communication

Luyi Cheng

Molecular Biology and Structural Biology

Northwestern University

Antimicrobial resistance has been declared a global health threat by the World Health Organization and a quick Google search can easily lead you to many other reports and awareness efforts. These resources, in addition to explaining the current issue of antimicrobial resistance, also detail methods to manage and prevent the further spread of drug-resistant microorganisms. But all of this evidence will remain hidden — unless we effectively communicate the contents of these reports to achieve widespread public understanding and support.

Recently, to fill this gap, the Wellcome Trust released a report on how to communicate about antimicrobial resistance.

The report first summarizes current barriers to successful communication. These barriers include how we use multiple terms for antimicrobial resistance (for example antimicrobial versus antibiotic), which doesn’t help to connect different messages into one unifying issue. Media coverage often focuses on specific outbreaks, which also makes it hard for audiences to connect broad causes to resulting events.

In response, the report recommends five principles for effectively communicating about microbial resistance, based on desk research, media analysis, interviews, and public message testing. One suggestion is to frame antimicrobial medicine as undermining all of modern medicine and negatively affecting treatment across several diseases, rather than treating it as a singular health issue, like tuberculosis or MRSA. Additionally, using ‘apocalyptic’ messaging can lack credibility and lead to skepticism with audiences. Instead, the report suggests showing that antimicrobial resistance is not only an issue we are facing in the upcoming future but as an everyday issue in our lives right now. Usng this messaging encourages immediate action.

To me, this report is valuable for addressing the particular global issue of antimicrobial resistance and also more. It is part of a growing body evidence-backed resources for communicating current scientific issues that is incredibly valuable for bridging gaps in sharing knowledge in our communities.

Catch Mercury crossing in front of the Sun, or wait 'til 2032 for your next chance

From about 7:35AM to 1PM EST, a tiny dot will chug across the Sun

Every year there are special astronomical events. This one only happens a handful of times a century. A tiny, tiny, small, smol dot, the planet Mercury, will transit across the Sun the morning of November 11th, like an eclipse in miniature. Look up (with proper eye protection), or wait until 2032 for your next chance to see it. The picture above is of the last transit in 2016 (here's a fun, dramatically-scored video of it, just for fun).

Check out more info from NASA Jet Propulsion Lab here.

By tracking star "pollution," scientists have found exoplanets similar to Earth's structure

Using oxygen pressure as a measure, scientists examined the structural properties of white dwarfs

Rebecca Dzombak

University of Michigan

Humans have been wondering whether we truly are alone in the universe for millennia. Part of our quest to understand our place has involved searching for other planets like Earth in the Solar System and beyond — but that's much easier said than done. Space, as it turns out, is big, and other planets are far, far away. Studying them in detail, then, is tricky.

A new study in Science gets around this roadblock by studying white dwarfs, which are not an obscure fantasy reference but are actually the remnants of low and medium mass stars. By studying the "pollution" in these white dwarfs, which occurs when rocky bodies crash into the stars earlier in their lives, Doyle and colleagues were able to estimate the rocks' geochemical and geophysical properties — specifically, what was are they made of and what their structures involve.

To estimate these properties, Doyle and colleagues relied on a key geochemical indicator: oxygen fugacity, which is a measure of the partial pressure of oxygen in rocks as they form. They measured six elements as oxides, including magnesium, silicon, aluminium, calcium and iron. As these oxides must have been in thermodynamic equilibrium with oxygen during formation, their abundances can be used to estimate an overall oxidation state. That estimate can then be linked to atmospheric composition, the geochemistry of its crust and mantle, and even the size of its core.

Ultimately, Doyle and colleagues determined that these rocky exoplanets were similar to Earth and Mars in terms of both composition and structure. So there are some exoplanets like ours in the universe...and this brings us one step closer to knowing how we fit in the universe.

Mice need microbes to forget their fears

Germ-free and antibiotic-treated mice have impaired fear extinction

Claudia Lopez-Lloreda

University of Pennsylvania

Halloween can be a fearful time for many. Ghosts, ghouls and goblins run around on Halloween night, spooking children and adults alike. But once we get used to them and realize that they do not pose a threat, the brain can get rid of, or extinguish, that fear memory. Now that it's November, you've probably forgotten all about any Halloween frights.

Neuroscientists have long been interested in the processes that allow the brain to eliminate fear memories, since problems with "fear extinction" are linked to post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders. Now, a new study sheds more light on how the billions of tiny microbes in the body may play an important role in getting rid of fear.

The "microbiota" encompasses all the microorganisms that live on and in your body. The recent study looks at how getting rid of the microbiota affects fear extinction in mice. The researchers exposed mice to a tone paired with a shock, which after many exposures, leads the mice to create a "fear memory" and freeze in response to the tone. Fear extinction then happens when the mice are repeatedly exposed to the tone without the shock and eventually forget the fear memory. To examine the role the microbiota play in fear extinction, researchers treated adult mice with antibiotics to reduce their microbiota or used mice that had been microbe-free since birth. Although antibiotic-treated and microbe-free mice created a fear memory as well as the control mice, they continued freezing even during extinction, meaning they were not able to get rid of the fear memory.

When researchers looked at the brains of the antibiotic-treated mice, they found that there were significant differences in the expression of genes and of neural activity in the cells of the medial prefrontal cortex, a brain area critical for fear extinction. Among other changes, researchers found that changing the microbiota led to alterations in microglia, the immune cells of the brain. Microglia eat up dendritic spines, which are small protrusions off of neurons that receive input from other neurons. The researchers identified that there was more spine elimination in the antibiotic-treated mice, suggesting that learning might be affected by an imbalance in spine elimination due to microglia alterations.

When researchers analyzed the brain fluid of these mice, they found that there were four chemicals that were decreased in the microbiota-less mice. Researchers think that these chemicals might be an important way that microbes influence brain function. These findings shed new light on the ways that the microbiota can extinguish fear.

TikToks are teaching Generation Z about science

Yes, you can share funny clips on TikTok, but what about communicating science on this platform?

Rebecca Muir

University College London

Teenagers across the world use the short video-sharing app TikTok to escape their schoolwork. Or, that's what teachers thought. Surprise! Creators on the app are now using it to teach Gen Z-ers everything science — ranging from genetics, to squid biology, and even science policy.

TikToks are easily digestible, 15 second videos which are accompanied by a song or audio-clip. The platform is geared towards entertaining middle and high schoolers. Nearly half of users are 10-20 years old, and the average user spends 53 minutes on the app every day. Scientists have spotted a niche in the TikTok market, and are starting to build science communities around the app, such as the Let’s TikTok about Science Twitter account.

What sort of videos have creators made so far? Here are a few examples.

Darrion is a Research Technician at Baylor College of Medicine, and uses a Nicki Minaj meme to explain gene expression:

Sarah McAnulty is a squid biologist and assistant research professor at the University of Connecticut, and in this video, uses Willow Smiths' dulcet tones to soundtrack a sea cucumber.

Megan McCuller specializes in non-molluscan invertebrates at a natural history museum, 1001 jars, and shows something which defies explanation.

Dr. Robert Lepenies is a research scientist in Berlin specializing in policy, environment, ethics, who wants to show other scientists what they are missing.

Reddit's r/science community is one of science writing's biggest outlets, with the stats to prove it

At ASHG 2019, Jennifer (Piper) Below shares the numbers behind r/science's global reach

Farah Qaiser

Molecular Genetics

University of Toronto

When scientists look to sharing their newly published research, they often turn to media outlets with large audiences. But at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2019 conference in October, I realized that Reddit's r/science community is the front page we may all be missing out on.

In case you haven't already stumbled on to the site, Reddit – “read and edit” – is a news aggregation social media platform which is often referred to as the front page of the internet. It's composed of over a million subreddits (communities), where the 13-year-old r/science is “a place to share and discuss new scientific research." Fun fact: r/science has over 22.6 million subscribers, making it the fifth largest subreddit on the site.

Jennifer (Piper) Below is an Assistant Professor of at Vanderbilt University Medical Center – and is also one of the 1,500+ moderators on Reddit's r/science community. At ASHG’s communications workshop, Below shared that in September 2019 alone, the r/science community “averaged 5.6 million unique users and 29 million page views” – which happens to be a larger circulation than all top ten US newspapers' weekday circulation (including USA Today, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal).

At r/science, Below says that there are three goals: to normalize interactions with scientists, to illuminate the processes of science (rather than only the results) and to promote disintermediation (i.e. skipping news outlets to go straight to the scientists). Below says that r/science does this in three ways: user-submitted links to research, hosting a monthly science discussion series (replacing the old Ask-Me-Anything format) and by verifying users.

newspaper bundle

By AbsolutVision on Unsplash

Below says that “presenting your work in an r/science discussion is likely the largest audience you will ever have in your career” and hopes that science discussions on Reddit will become a culturally expected next step for scientists once they publish an “important” paper. For example, r/science has hosted discussion series on climate change, concussion injuries right after the 2019 Super Bowl and a conversation with the research group of Frances Arnold – the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner, where the climate change science discussion had around ten million impressions and over 183k views.

Submissions requirements and comment rules help keep r/science conversations polite and scientific. In fact, by verifying their expertise and displaying an educational flair (e.g. “Grad Student | Physics”), Below says that Reddit users can help provide the context behind research, including methodology and statistics. Of r/science's 5,000+ verified users, 31% have a Bachelor of Science degree, where an additional 4% and 24% identify as professors and graduate students. Biology (19%) is the largest verified field, followed closely by engineering (16%) and medicine (12%). Journalists, writers and university press relations can also request flairs.

Interested in exploring r/science? Below recommends creating a Reddit account – and to consider adding an educational flair to your account or hosting a discussion series. After all, if you truly want to communicate your science with the public, why not head directly to the front page of the internet?

Human disturbance is drying out forests

Thinning out the canopy impacts the water cycle within a forest, causing more moisture to be lost to the atmosphere

Rebecca Dzombak

University of Michigan

New research from northern Michigan shows that when a forest's canopy structure is disturbed — when leaves and branches thin out and provide less coverage — it's not just the view that's affected. The forest's water cycle is affected, too.

Researchers studied two areas of the forest at the University of Michigan's Biological Station. One area had been intentionally disturbed a decade ago by killing certain species of trees to thin out the canopy. One area was an undisturbed control area. Researchers found daily and seasonal differences in the movement of water in these different areas of forest. The strongest differences in water cycling occurred during the summer when evapotranspiration rates were highest. Forest areas with more open canopies showed more mixing between the air above the forest and the air within the forest, suggesting a greater degree of connectivity between the land, forest, and atmosphere. This meant that the air within the forest was drier. Canopy structure, then, serves as a sort of regulating mechanism for moisture release to the atmosphere, with dense treetops holding moisture closer Earth's surface.

 Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

Water stress is already a substantial problem in many areas of the world, and the problem is likely to get much worse in the coming decades. Since changes to canopies can be driven by both humans (forest management and logging) and climate change (ecological succession), is it important to understand how changes in the canopy structure impact the water cycle in a forest, and, in turn, how this affects regional water stress.

Kristen Vogt Veggeberg

Science Education

University of Illinois at Chicago

Ed: All this week Massive is marking Halloween with stories of scary, witchy, and downright ghastly stories from nature

If you walk around an old cemetery, you might notice tombstones that have sunk into the dirt, tilted to the side, or even appeared to move across the ground since they (and their owners) were first placed. This is because these gravemarkers are heavy and the dirt under our feet is often unstable over long time periods. The tread marks left behind have inspired spooky urban legends.

Unfortunately for those that love ghost stories, there’s a scientific explanation behind the phenomenon of moving tombstones. It’s  got the wonderfully spooky name of "downhill creep" (or soil creep), and also explains natural phenomena such as bending trees on a hillside or depressions in mountainsides.

There is even a physics formula that explains downhill creep. Called diffusional sediment flux, this is calculated as the product of hill-slope and a value called the diffusion constant. Those values multiplied together yields the speed at which a given tombstone (or any physical object on a hill) moves over time. In addition to just modeling tombstone movement, this formula has also recently been used to calculate how erosion rates change with precipitation

So if we calculated this value for the average tombstone on a hill, it is pretty clear that it will always be gently moving, tombstone owner beneath be damned.

Just in time for Halloween, the spookiest primate tricks the world with a hidden thumb

The aye-aye has been hiding a secret all this time: a sixth pseudodigit

Darcy Shapiro

Evolutionary Anthropology

Rutgers University

The aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is an incredibly specialized primate. For one thing, it's the only living representative of its family of lemurs. It also has rodent-like ever-growing incisors and bat-like ears that it uses in combination with an extra-long third digit to tap on trees, listen for the grubs inside, and then extract them with that spindly finger.

And these features make it look pretty creepy. So creepy, in fact, that seeing it is traditionally considered a bad omen or a direct cause of bad luck in its native country, Madagascar.

Given the aye-aye's specialized hand anatomy, it seems like anthropologists would have already investigated that structure pretty thoroughly. But it turns out the aye-aye's hand has been hiding a secret - a sixth pseudodigit!

An aye-aye, a strange nocturnal primate that only lives in Madagascar

Frank Vassen on Flickr

In a new study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, a group of researchers investigated the hand anatomy in one immature and six adult aye-ayes using traditional dissection digital imaging techniques. Like the famous "thumb" of the giant panda, the aye-aye also has a radial sesamoid bone in its wrist that seems to help it compensate for the grasping ability the aye-aye lost when its third digit became specialized for probing out insect larva. Sesamoid bones form within tendons, typically where they cross joints, and the aye-aye's is both enlarged and has muscles attached to it to help it function like a faux-thumb.

This is the first accessory digit found in a primate. By understanding how these different structures integrate in the aye-aye's hand, we may gain further insights into the evolutionary history of the pseudothumb - and the fascinating and endangered aye-aye species.

Climate change threatens bats — and tequila

Climate change could destroy the delicate partnership between agave plants and the bats that pollinate them

Kelly Franklin

Conservation Biology

Temple University

Changes in temperature and precipitation associated with climate change alter the habitable ranges for many species. This becomes especially problematic for species that depend on mutualisms — relationships where both species benefit — for existence. Not only are plant-pollinator mutualisms vital for survival of the species involved, they also provide us with numerous economic and cultural services to boot.

We often hear about how climate change threatens bees, our most iconic pollinators, but rarely do we think about the pollinators of the night — bats. Mexican long-nosed bats pollinate the agave plant during their migration from central Mexico to the Southwestern United States every spring — following the blooms of their primary food source. By pollinating the agave, these bats provide us with sweeteners, biofuels, building materials, and most notably tequila

Photo by Francisco Galarza on Unsplash

Mexican long-nosed bats are currently listed on IUCN Red List as endangered due to habitat loss, agricultural practices, and human disturbance. But a recent study published in Scientific Reports shows that climate change also poses a threat to the already perilous existence of the Mexican long-nosed bat. Researchers found that climate change is poised to reduce the overlap in the suitable range of the agave and the Mexican long-nosed bat by at least 75%, putting this already fragile partnership at risk of disappearance.

As the range for the agave plant shifts to higher elevations and cooler temperatures, this primary food source sustaining the bats during migration will vanish from their route. Maintaining the bats’ migration corridor is key to the preservation of both the partnership between these species and the species themselves; for the tequila and bat lovers out there, it’s non-negotiable.

Neurotoxins in the water supply worsen the impact of Zika virus

A neurotoxin produced by cyanobacteria may help explain patterns of Zika-associated microcephaly in Brazil

Zika virus is transmitted by Aedes aegypti — a mosquito that also transmits dengue and yellow fever. In some people, the virus causes symptoms that are very mild. Other cases, however, are dramatic — fetuses that are infected inside the womb can develop microcephaly, a condition in which the baby's head is much smaller than expected. Unfortunately, many cases were reported in Brazil during the recent outbreak of the disease.

The situation motivated Brazilian researchers to search for answers. Some were found quickly: in 2016, a paper described how the virus affects the development of brain organoids. But a big question remained unsolved: why were the microcephaly cases concentrated in northeast Brazil when Zika was spread throughout the country?

Various hypotheses were on the table: folic acid deficiency in pregnant women in northeastern Brazil, coinfection with other mosquito-transmitted viruses, extreme poverty, or even the use of pesticides in agriculture. But nothing seemed to explain why there were so many cases of microcephaly in this particular region.

An interdisciplinary team lead by neuroscientist Stevens Rehen, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, recently published a preprint that adds one more piece to that puzzle. The group investigated how environmental factors can influence the development of microcephaly.

Northeastern Brazil suffers from drought periods, which can lead to blooms of cyanobacteria. Those microorganisms often produce toxins that can be harmful to human and animal health.

Cyanobacteria bloom

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The new hypothesis to explain the microcephaly boom in northeast Brazil involved saxitoxin, a neurotoxin produced by the freshwater cyanobacteria Raphidiopsis raciborskii. Perhaps because of a severe drought in the region from 2012 to 2016, there was a higher saxitoxin occurrence in the drinking water supply of northeast Brazil compared to the rest of the country.

In the lab, the team showed that the presence of saxitoxin doubled the cell death rates in progenitor areas of human brain organoids infected by Zika virus. Scientists now believe that this might explain why microcephaly was worse in the northeast region.

Due to the complexity of the Zika outbreak in Brazil, the scientific community had to exercise true detective skills. Scientists had to go beyond their own lab walls and connect different knowledge areas to solve the puzzle. Hopefully, these new findings will help to prevent future cases of Zika-associated microcephaly.

A parasitic flatworm is one of nature's spookiest creatures

Leucochloridium paradoxum is a parasitic flatworm that uses both mind control and mimicry to trick birds into eating it

Monica Javidnia

University of Rochester

Larval Leucochloridium paradoxum, more commonly known as the green-banded broodsac, is a parasitic flatworm ingested by snails feeding on bird feces. As the parasite grows, it comes to take over the snail's tentacles, leading to one to two appendages resembling wriggling caterpillars or maggots  — known as mimicry.

Mimicry is an umbrella term used to describe when organisms look like other things. For example, insects can look like twigs or leaves to blend in with their surroundings, anglerfish attract prey by wiggling their esca (an adapted spine) to resemble a smaller fish, and some flowers are shaped like female insects to attract males for pollination. L. paradoxum takes mimicry a step further by drawing the snail out into the open to increase its chances of getting gobbled up by a bird.

Land snail Succinea putris with Leucochloridium paradoxum inside its left eye stalk

A land snail with Leucochloridium paradoxum inside its left eye stalk.

By Thomas Hahmann.

Researchers have also found snails infected by L. paradoxum tend to stay in open, better-lit places and on higher vegetation, making them an irresistible snack for birds. Once in the bird, the parasites continue their life cycle, turning into adults, reproducing, and laying eggs. These eggs are released through bird droppings, and the cycle continues!

But the green-banded broodsac is not the only parasite that uses sinister mind control or mimicry to make its way through life. Toxoplasma gondii causes behavioral changes in mice to make cats eat them, and Myrmeconema neotropicum infects worker ants, causing a berry-like blob that will attract birds.

The worst mimicry of all? Raisin cookies that trick me into thinking they're chocolate chip.

Ed again: The views shared by the author in this article do not reflect the cookie-related positions of Massive. We support oatmeal raisin cookies.

Have you ever wondered why it's harder to maintain your weight as you get older?

New research shows that as you age, the rate at which lipids are removed from your fat tissue decreases

Daniela Helena

Università della Svizzera Italiana

Have you ever wondered why athletes often cannot maintain their weight as they get older? Could the culprit be their newly discovered passion for binge-watching while eating fast food? Or could it be that they changed…nothing at all? Interestingly, new research shows that as you get older, the rate at which lipids are removed from your fat tissue decreases, which may explain why maintaining weight is harder as you grow older.

Our white adipose tissue, the main fat-storing tissue in human adults, is one of the main targets when tackling obesity or weight changes. Its size is determined by a phenomenon called lipid turnover – the balance between how much energy your body stores as fat and how much it burns of the stored fat.

food salad chocolate diet

This means that, as you age, if you keep that exact same (now not-so-perfect) diet, your lipid uptake will get higher than your lipid removal and you will gain weight.

By Brenda Godinez on Unsplash

Imagine you have a high lipid turnover. Then, the average time lipids spend in your adipose tissue is low. Now imagine you have matched that with the perfect diet. As long as your lipid turnover doesn’t change, your weight will stay the same. The caveat comes with your ever increasing age.

The researchers had been following adults for up to 16 years and continued to measure the lipid turnover of their subcutaneous fat. They discovered that, irrespective of long-term changes in body weight, initial age or even level of exercise, the rate of lipid removal from their fatty tissue was decreasing with age. This means that, as you age, if you keep that exact same (now not-so-perfect) diet, your lipid uptake will get higher than your lipid removal and you will gain weight. In fact, participants who didn’t change their diet during the study period saw their weight increase.

How can you cope with this? To put it simply, the fat that gets stored in your body mainly reflects the amount of food you eat (and not only extra fat, but also extra sugar, gets stored as fat!). Although other factors, such as exercise or the composition of your diet, may eventually also influence fat deposition, this will not alter your rate of lipid removal. So, until other therapeutic approaches come out, we may have to accept that, as we age, we may need to lighten our diets if we want to avoid those extra pounds.

Being reminded of bias makes students treat female professors fairer

Students who read a bias reminder rated their female professors 10% higher

Donna McDermott

Emory University

Student evaluations help to determine whether professors get hired and promoted. But are they fair to professors? Probably not: multiple studies show that student evaluations are biased against women and people of color.

A new study shows that it may be possible to decrease evaluation bias against female professors by making students aware of the problem.

Researchers tested a method for reducing bias by including a short message about bias in the evaluation forms. This “bias reminder” message explained that evaluations are influenced by students’ unconscious biases about race and gender of instructor. The bias reminder then suggested that students should resist stereotypes about instructors and instead focus on the content of the course.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

The researchers tested the effect of this bias reminder in four college courses: two taught by women and two taught by men. For each class, the researchers randomly split the student evaluators into two groups: a control group which received the typical student evaluation and a treatment group which received an identical student evaluation, except that it included a bias reminder.

Researchers found that students who read the bias reminder rated their female professors 10% higher than students in the same class who did not read the bias reminder.

One major limitation of this study is that it only tested the effect of the bias reminder on gender bias. All of the evaluated professors were white. Future studies will need to test the effect of a bias reminder on student evaluations of professors of color.

Increasing diversity among college faculty is an important goal and a complex challenge. However, some changes are easy to make. This study shows that a simple reminder to students could help decrease systemic bias against female professors.

More Lab Notes →


Mathieu Jean Baptiste

The Story

Mathieu was born in Port Au Prince, Haiti and based in Houston, Texas. Mathieu spent his early years in Haiti and St Paul, Minnesota. He studied Art and Photography at Ecole Nationale des Arts (Enarts), a university in Port Au Prince, Haiti resulting in a Bachelor of Arts in Art History.

Mathieu uses paint and metal as tools to unite the world around him. He states, ‘This world is filled with confusions and misunderstandings as people struggle and strive in this beautifully, complex, maze of life.” Mathieu’s art reflect the good, the hopeful, and the interconnectedness for a better world.


Coal MiningHard Rock MiningPetrochemicalTunnelling

What does it feel like to be inside a Refuge Chamber: Physical Effects?

Refuge chambers are a standard requirement within a site’s overall emergency response plan, but in the event that a chamber needs to be used, understanding what it feels like to be in a refuge chamber can improve the response of entrapped personnel.

Working underground is a complex environment to comprehend, so let’s set the scene.

Underground the air always seems a little thicker, and the dust doesn’t help. You’re sweating, it’s noisy, but you stay focused to get the job done. Then your team gets a call over the radio as a distinct rotten smell drifts down the passage, you’re body tenses slightly as you begin to realise what this means – evacuation.

Training kicks in and together you head to the nearest exit. The intensity of the situation becomes more evident, you realise your team won’t be able to make it to the exit, so you head to a refuge chamber straight ahead.

You enter the refuge chamber, commence operational procedures which you recall from training and follow the prompts on the wall; you call the control room and await further instruction. Everyone relaxes slightly, you know you’re in a safe location and the emergency response team know you’re here – it won’t be long now…

Inside an underground refuge chamber.

What Physical Stresses Should I Expect When Inside a Refuge Chamber?

When enclosed in a refuge chamber, it is likely to get hot and humid. There are a number of factors which contribute to the rise in temperature and humidity, including the metabolism of each occupant, heat generated from equipment, and heat transfer from outside the refuge chamber.

High levels of heat and humidity are dangerous. Excessive heat stress may be life-threatening, and adverse health effects can range from confusion and poor decision making, fatigue, nausea, rapid heart rate and loss of consciousness.

Air conditioners are indispensable in refuge chamber design. Artificial cooling and dehumidifying are required as the temperature inside a refuge chamber will continue to rise if steps are not taken to control this.

What Psychological Stresses Should I Expect When in a Refuge Chamber? Stress, sleep deprivation, lack of privacy are some of the most common behavioural stresses Read More

Close Proximity

Refuge chambers have limited capacity. Portable chambers, in particular, are built to support a restricted number of workers during an incident; with limited spacing, the quarters can feel cramped and crowded. The closeness of a chamber will depend on its design, size and purpose.

The close quarters can cause some individuals to feel uncomfortable and become flustered or irritable. Individual, ergonomic chairs provide personnel with comfortable seating without impeding on the space of others within the chamber. Many chambers are also equipped with additional resources such as playing cards, which can be used to distract personnel for their surroundings.

Every refuge chamber, whether permanent or portable, requires a rationed supply of water and food.

Dehydration is a serious concern due to heat and humidity that accumulates within an occupied refuge chamber.

refuge-chamber water supply

If water lost through sweat is not sufficiently replaced, progressive dehydration occurs. Further to this, salt deficiency (especially following long periods of sweating) may also cause a form of heat exhaustion resulting in painful muscle cramps. All MineARC chambers come equipped with a supply of long-life water.

Why You Should Know What it’s like to be in a Refuge Chamber

Understanding the situation before it occurs. Educating personnel about the potential psychological and physical impacts of being in a refuge chamber will create greater awareness and prepare them for when an emergency occurs.

Improved safety procedures have resulted in major incidents becoming rarer in underground mines and construction; however, this now means there is often little on-site experience in dealing with these types of situations.

The growth of a good safety culture depends on the reliability of available information, and for it to be used alongside regular training as a tool for better decision making and the sound management of resources. Training, including rigorous simulations, provides practical experience and improves the rate of correct response and the understanding of what it is like to be in a refuge chamber.

The long-term implementation of good health and safety planning and practices protect against risk. Without education and training to build a better understanding, the effect of being in a refuge chamber can have a significant impact on the survivability of workers. It is imperative to incorporate refuge chamber training into the overall health and safety plan of a site.

“I began to tell jokes, a simple form of distraction to try and lighten the mood. There were a couple of younger guys in the chamber, so I tried to remain strong, never letting on what was racing through my mind – what is happening on the surface, why have we been here for so long. Honestly, I was afraid; I kept thinking about my family. My wife. And my kids.”

Terry’s Story

Terry’s Story. I could see the flashes of green from the strobe light of the chamber up ahead, welcoming me. I made my way inside, and as I shut the door behind me, I could feel the relief washed over. The chamber was built to hold twenty, but there were only six of us inside; safe, but eagerly waiting to find out more. Continue reading.

What it feels like to be inside a Refuge Chamber: Psychological. Refuge chambers can feel like sealed sea containers, while more complex, the thought of waiting out an emergency can be daunting. Psychological stresses can impact decision making as well as physical state and behaviour, negatively affecting survivability.  Continue Reading.


th-66For the director of music. With stringed instruments. Of David. Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. Psalm 62:1

What’s your “go to” song? I am sure it will be different depending on your emotional status. Many times when the kids and I were working on a hard project that needed extra strength to finish, I would start voice trumpeting the first notes of the Rocky theme from the movie. The music mirrored the transition to dig deeper and push through the change that needed to happen. What’s your go to song to lift your heart spiritually?

One of the reasons that we love King David is the transparency revealed in the songs that he wrote. We are not looking at a journal or diary that someone found near his bedside. Rather, David asked that his songs be rehearsed and sang publicly. His thoughts and relationship with God would be open to all and on full display.

Worship was one of the ways that David navigated his thought life. He asked God some very difficult questions. Why do the wicked prosper? Why are you silent?  Why do the nations rage? Why is my heart overwhelmed? What is man that you are mindful of him?

These questions and thoughts were presented in song. The song would lead to a trust in God even though some of the answers may be left unresolved. Can you find peace today knowing that some of your answers may be left unresolved?

We spend a lot of emotional energy trying to find answers. Why did she say that? What does my boss really think about me? Are my children okay? Why would someone act so unbecomingly? Will this person ever forgive me? Can I love again? How can I go on without this person in my life?

It is not wrong or a problem to ask difficult questions. Sometimes it is helpful just to formulate the question that has been bugging you. But being consumed by the time and energy searching for the answer is unhealthy. Much of that pursuit is a desire in us to “know” all things. The resolve that you are searching for will only be found as it leads to a peaceful trust in God – who knows all things – and loves you.

Direct your questions and prayer to God. Don’t spend time rehearsing your woe is me to yourself and others. Talk with God. Do as David did. Speak to Him beginning right at the point of your pain and confusion. Listen to David’s start. “Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer.”

It may be helpful to use your “go to” song to redirect your trust toward God’s direction. He is always available. May you receive the comfort of His peace today.

Blessings Love y’all